Funeral Pyre
by Oriana de la Rose
Summary: 1680. England. An angel appears to a young, naïve girl. He is striking, powerful, and she is inexplicably drawn towards the darkness within him. The seduction that ensues is swift and powerful. However, things are not as they seem, and what one may perceive to be kindness, may in fact be nothing short of malice. ExB.
1. The Witch in the Pyre

**This began from musings I had earlier this month. The beginning chapter is but a preface, the following chapters will be much longer. The bolded name at the beginning of each chapter indicates the point of view.**

**It is a 17****th**** century tale of an angel that appears to a young, naïve girl. The seduction that ensues is swift and powerful. However, things are not as they seem, and what one may perceive to be kindness, may in fact be nothing short of malice.**

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**Bella. 1680. England.**

The smell of burning flesh is both revolting and pervading. It seeps into everything: your clothing, each strand of your hair, even the spaces under your fingernails.

The witch burning on the pyre screamed in agony, her feet roasting in the flames while the rest of her body remained unmercifully pristine and unburned. The wind carried the smoke quickly to the west, not allowing the treacherous whore the pleasure of suffocating before the flames enveloped her. It was a sign of God's vengeance that she remained conscious for the entirety of her ordeal, a sign that her heretical screams and rumors of witchcraft were true.

This I was sure of.

However, despite the fact that I knew she was a witch. Despite the foul utterances that escaped her mouth, I felt pity. Pity for the poor, lost creature that writhed on the pyre in agony so great it nearly brought tears to the eyes of even the most hardened of hearts. It is not easy to watch someone burn alive.

I turned away in disgust and fear. Disgust in watching her flesh roast, disgust in watching the crowd around me yell in eagerness for her to burn faster, to increase the number of rushes beneath her so that the fire burned quicker. The crowd surrounding me was dirty and smelled of body odor. The poor did not have the luxury of washing their bodies as the wealthy did but chose not to do. Washing weakened the heart – every intelligent person knew that.

I began to elbow my way out of the crowd, my steps quickening with fear. There was something about the witch's screams that bored into my brain, terrifying me. Something about the unintelligible mutterings that escaped her mouth frightened me, seeming as if she was conjuring her last, yet most powerful, spell. As I reached the end of the crowd, I turned my head to gaze upon her one last time.

Our eyes met. My dark brown and achingly average eyes met her beautiful ones. She was young and strikingly beautiful, with a thin and strong body and hair as dark as a raven's wings. I had never in my life seen anyone as beautiful as she.

It was said that between her legs was a witch's teat in which she suckled her animal familiar – a bat – providing it with her lifeblood so that it would do her bidding. Some of my neighbors had said that they had even seen her frolicking during the Witch's Sabbath in which she danced naked in the moonlight and fornicated with demons. But, as I looked at her, it almost seemed difficult to imagine that this lovely creature, with dark skin and dark eyes, could be anything other than gentle and achingly sad. Her cries grew angry as our eyes met. Her wailings, which once were so full of sadness and pain that I had wanted to save her, grew to angry shrieks. A hatred entered those beautiful eyes as we gazed at each other, a hatred so deep and powerful that I felt my organs tremble inside me. Her dark hair whipped viciously around her head, the wind encouraging the flames still further up her body.

As the wind increased, as the flames devoured her body, climbing higher and higher, as those dark eyes stared into my soul, the young maiden began shrieking in a language I didn't understand. Foul words flowed from her mouth. The crowd around us gasped in fear, each believing that she was cursing them individually. However, it was only me that her eyes met. Only me that seemed to be the one chosen to meet her wrath. My ears strained to hear her above the crackling of wood and the mutterings of the crowd. As I heard her clearly for the first time, my skin chilled.

"_Cave, qui venit in forma enim Dei, non est. Incendemus te, et detrahent te: et in inferno, ut me incenderunt_."

She spoke in the language of the papists, in the language they used to speak their superfluous incantations during mass. The Catholics who had once ruled this dithering, wet island insisted on using Latin in their masses, despite the fact that no one but the wealthy and the clergy could understand it.

This is what most struck me. That the witch spoke in a language once deemed exceedingly holy. Yet what spewed from her mouth was anything but.

"_Exarserunt sicut ignis absumet_" she repeated, again and again, as the fire slowly peeled away her flesh.

I did not understand what she said. Perhaps if I had, the events to come would not have surprised me so. Perhaps I would have known, understood, and not fallen victim to the treachery of those full of malice and evil. Perhaps I would have perceived false kindness as nothing more than hidden manipulation. But I did not. And my ignorance doomed me as much as the witch had doomed herself.

I stared back at the beauty in the fire, the woman who had once been my lover, and knew that she was cursing me for what I had done.

For it was me that had sealed her fate and caused her to burn.

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**Thoughts and reviews are indeed appreciated. I shall be using my double degrees in History to help with this narrative.**

**As always,**

**Oriana.**


	2. The Meeting

**Bella. 1680. England.**

I began to run, suddenly afraid of whatever Lilith had unleashed upon me. In the short time we had been together, I had only the slightest inkling that she might have been involved in the arts. Of course, many people subconsciously engaged in superstitious and even magical behavior without realizing it, but they were never burned as heretical witches. I had seen a woman the other day leave a small bowl of milk out for the fairies that were said to wander at certain times of the day, the milk being a way to appease the sometimes malicious creatures. Other people still used the Bible for divination, to predict the future based on the scriptures that coins would fall upon. Papists made the sign of the cross whenever they encountered something particularly bad, as if using the motion to ward off evil. In the old days, people used to flock to relics in Catholic churches, convinced that if they touched or kissed the bones of old saints that they would be cured, wealthy, or prosperous.

Magic was everywhere. But the magic that was viewed as evil was that which was not tied to religion. The papists claimed that bread and wine turned into blood and flesh magically with the words of a priest. Is that no different and perhaps even more brutal, than a woman who uses magic to heal someone?

Regardless, Lilith, was seen as a witch. I had watched her burn. I had watched her curse me with those sadistic Latin words that were so foreign to me.

I only knew that, in that moment, I saw her for what she truly was. An evil creature. But how could it be so? We had loved deeply for but a short period of time. I remember caressing her face as we laid in bed together, that beautiful dark face of hers. I remembered those beautiful expressive eyes that seemed to hold the world.

Lilith and I had known each other since childhood. We were born in the same English village, both poor, both dirty, both delighted in a world that did not want us. We were born girls, a curse that was almost as powerful as any a witch could bestow. My mother, who'd had six other girls, cried when I was brought into this world – or so I was told. I had been unwanted since birth. Lilith's fate was different, but also similar. Her family was pig farmers, destined to poverty and doomed to destitution. She was the last girl in a family of twelve. Her mother had had numerous miscarriages and stillbirths, and had been thankful for the birth of a live child. Lilith's family embraced her, unlike mine. But it didn't change the fact that she was a girl, I was a girl, and we had both entered a cruel and vicious world.

We became friends at a young age and matured together, experiencing puberty together. Lilith seemed to have no interest in any of the young boys from the village that tried to flirt with her. I, however, did. Strangely enough, I caught myself staring at both the boys and the girls, wondering how I could find both so entrancing. But Lilith was where my heart lied. She was strong, beautiful even at a young age, clever, and defiant, for which she quickly gained a reputation for being a whore. While men in our village were able to fornicate with women without garnering too much animosity, women were confined theoretically to a life of virtue. Of course, this rarely happened. But if a woman was open about her carnal appetites, she would face public outrage. Some things were best hidden behind closed doors.

Perhaps this was why, when a famer's cattle all mysteriously died, they blamed it on my lover. No, that would not be true. They blamed her because she was known as a healer, a woman that used her knowledge of the earth to treat her fellow humans. However, not everyone appreciated these gifts.

Lilith was beautiful, that was easy to see. But she was so lovely that there were more than a couple men that fell in love with her as soon as they saw her, and a few women too. The grace with which she walked was intoxicating, the delicate perfume of her body, those dark, piercing eyes. All of it was enticing, so much so that by the time I was twelve I was already touching myself to thoughts of her developing body. And Lilith's beauty only increased with age and with that beauty grew resentment in the village. Housewives despised her; husbands resented her rebuffs of their advances. I had warned her of this, but she ignored my remarks, instead continuing to wear the thinnest of dresses and continue to practice her healing powers without discretion.

When we were but thirteen, Lilith ran her fingers over my body for the first time, starting at my face then down my throat. Her fingers were thin and calloused from hard work. We had been playing in the stream nearby, both naked and giggling. I stole glances at her whenever I could, my eyes feasting on her. It was not the first time I had seen her naked, but it was indeed the first time I realized that I wanted her. I had seen animals rutting while in season before, their strange humping and thrusting movements. I had seen horses mate, the stallion's penis longer than a full-grown man's arm. But I had no idea of what women did together. I barely knew anything about human sex. I only knew that I had gotten my monthly flow just a month earlier and had suddenly been thrust into an adult world which was so unfamiliar to me. I was already betrothed to the neighbor's boy who was a couple years older than me, but we wouldn't marry until he had obtained a farm of his own. But, in that moment, while we giggled in that stream, splashing each other, I wanted to kiss her. Kiss her in the way I'd seen men kiss women in taverns before. I wanted to kiss her everywhere.

Lilith, young as she was, was intuitive. A sensual creature, she must have known what I was thinking. We were always so in tune with one another. She crawled over the stream to me, pulling me down to sit with her in the shallow water. Her eyes looked straight into mine and I blushed, unused to anyone's touch, much less another girl's.

"Shhhh," she murmured. "Why do you look away, little one?" she whispered.

"Little one?" I retorted nervously. "I'm a year older than you!"

"But you are shy. Why are you embarrassed about this?" She took my hand and placed it on her budding breast. "My aunt showed me the ways of love when I was young. I know how to make you feel as you've never felt before." She rubbed my fingers over her nipple. The tiny thing budded into a hard bead. I stared fascinated, first at her breast, and then at her eyes, and back again. "I know you, little Bella. Don't be afraid. You're going to be married to Ralph soon. Then you can't afford to be shy!" she giggled knowingly, winking at me.

I blushed, knowing she was talking about my wedding night in the future. Her face turned serious then. Lilith leaned in slowly, her mouth going hesitantly to my neck. I pulled back a little at first, unsure of what to do with my hands and what to do with the rest of my body in general.

I didn't know what I was feeling, but there was an ache in my belly and in my legs. A deep, throbbing ache. She was the most divine creature I'd ever seen – clever and intelligent too. And I wanted to know her.

Lilith's nose grazed slowly down my neck, breathing me in. I felt her breasts press against mine. Butterflies dashed around in my stomach and I almost felt like I was going to throw up, and then became terrified that I actually would, and ruin this beautiful moment.

"Oh, Bella, you smell so nice," she murmured, running her fingers over my chest, down to my breasts. "Why can't it always be like this? Why can't we stay together forever? What do the clergy have against a woman loving another woman? I can't stand men and their awkward, disgusting thrusting. I like you much better." She pushed me back onto the smooth little pebbles in the stream, effectively angling me upstream so that the water rushed first over my legs then by my chest and head. "You're going to like this," she smiled devilishly. "I promise. I've done it so many times. You wouldn't believe how good it feels. I don't know what it is, but it's wonderful." She delicately moved my hips into the strongest part of the stream, where the water dropped in a tiny waterfall from above. The water hit directly on that place between my legs.

I sucked in a breath of air. What was this? As the water delicately splattered on that place between my legs that I hadn't yet learned how to use, Lilith's mouth covered my little breasts, sucking on the nipples. The water felt so good and I felt my hips rising to meet the hard little droplets. A tiny moan escaped my mouth as I wondered dizzily what was happening.

No one had told me about this. No one had told me that there were things that could feel good? I was prepared for the pain of a wedding night. I was prepared for the blood that would come from my husband's member soiling my virginity. But I wasn't prepared for this. Lilith had given me my first orgasm that day. I guessed that her aunt had done things with her when she was younger and that was how she knew so much, but it wasn't until later that she told me that her aunt had forced her to suck the woman's nipples and push a smooth wooden dowel up the woman's cunt.

Regardless, that was how things were with Lilith for me. She taught me what it was to feel pleasure. She also taught me archery in the woods, how to fist-fight, and how to sew up a wound with one of her long black hairs. I had owed my very existence to her.

And now she burned. As I rushed away from that pyre, back to my home, the smell of burning flesh followed. Guilt overpowered me but I kept telling myself that it was really her fault for killing those cattle. No, I didn't believe that.

What had really happened was that Lilith grew tired of me. It had taken but five years for her to grow bored and seek romance elsewhere. I remained utterly infatuated with her, trailing her like a lost puppy even well past my sixteenth birthday, reminding her of all the pleasure I had given her, all the love that I had for her. Even trying to blackmail her with the murder we had committed just last year. At the time of the murder, Lilith and I were pledged to one another. We had kissed, sucked, fingered, and licked every inch of each other's bodies and had even proclaimed each other blood sisters. But I was destined to marry Ralph, a dirty farm boy who had recently acquired his own tract of land. Lilith promised to take care of that problem for me and the next morning, before day-break, I had found her covered in blood trying to bury the body of a mutilated Ralph. I helped her of course, grateful that she had spared me involvement in the murder, but it bound me to her in a way that sex never could.

But all of that wasn't enough to keep her interested in me, and when she found love elsewhere, with a buxom dairy maid, I became jealous and told a farmer that the reason his livestock had all died was because Lilith cursed them, claiming that she had tried to curse me once as well. I was hurt, angry, and vengeful, and I wanted to hurt Lilith like she had hurt me.

It was horrible.

It was selfish.

But it was what I did.

I ran towards home. I was mentally exhausted from the events of the day. I had tried to harden my heart towards her, tried to forget that I had once loved her, but it was difficult. The sight of her in agony tore my heart and I found myself crying as I rushed home, the tears streaming down my face, blurring my vision.

Sobbing as the sun sank lower in the sky, I tried to find my way home. We lived further out of the village than most families and it was proving difficult to find my way back in the dark with a faceful of tears. The hilly terrain was even worse. I struggled to remain at the top of hill so that I didn't tumble down and spill my brains.

Suddenly, my foot caught on a rock on the path. I tripped, my body lunging to the left. I crashed down the tall hill, my body hitting the massive amounts of rocks on the way down. Suddenly, my head slammed into a particularly sharp boulder and everything went black.

…

Everything was dark.

Sticky.

My body, broken.

I struggled to open my eyes but they were caked shut with dried blood. My mouth felt dry, furry. I struggled to rise up by my leg screamed in pain. I finally was able to peel my eyelids open so that I could look down.

I immediately vomited on the grass beside me.

My leg was broken, the bone sticking obscenely through the flesh. I stared at the offending injury. The bone was white and smeared with blood and muscle, my leg was torn open and flesh flayed outward. It was horrific, it was disgusting.

And I knew I was going to die. A groan of agony escaped me as I struggled to sit up.

The pain was so intense I felt myself go limp.

Everything went black.

…

**Edward**

Her broken body lay on the grass. The night was in full bloom and only the full moon illuminated her blood-soaked features. Her leg was badly broken, and the back of her head was bleeding profusely. If she did not stop losing blood, she would die.

I had watched her for a while, this small little human. I had seen her grow and mature into a sensual little creature, ripe for the plucking. She was delicate, yet strong, her heart pure and corrupted by youth simultaneously. And it was with eagerness that I descended to touch her face for the first time.

I knelt by her body, my fingers delicately running over her jaw, her throat, and then those mounds beneath her dress. Strangely enough, her nipples hardened from my touch. Fascinated, I moved my forefinger in tiny swirls around her right nipple, forgetting entirely about her life-threatening injuries. I had never touched a human before. Much less one so succulent. Her taut little nipple seemed as if it begged for my mouth.

My eyes turned to her leg and I turned my full attention to her wounds. I leant down and quickly pushed her exposed bone back into the leg with a quick, violent thrust. The girl gasped with pain before she fell limp again, the pain proving to be too much. I then ran my tongue over the gash in her leg, the wound healing at my touch. The taste of blood was thick and delicious in my mouth. She was divine, her blood was heavenly, and I longed to explore her more, utterly captivated by this strange little creature. However, I resisted, running my fingers over the wound in her head as well. That too healed.

Humans are such fragile little things, destined to die an agonizing death, and often meeting that death far too soon. I wondered if she had ever dreamt of creatures like me before, creatures with wings and hardened, impenetrable bodies.

"Bella," I whispered delicately into her ear. "It is time to wake."

She did not stir and I began to worry about her catching a cold. The air was frigid and the night showed signs of snow flurries. I laid down beside her, in her spilt blood, and covered her with a wing. I did not want to retract them. I wanted her to see me when she woke. I wanted her mouth to part into a small "O" of surprise and awe as she looked upon me.

Angels are not all women. Nor are they kind creatures. They are agents of God and often, agents of his wrath. But, I had been sent to this girl, to Bella. And I would be lying if I said that I was not grateful for it. With us both lying on the ground, it was almost easy to imagine that I was human. I had done it so many times, longed for it so many times. The afterlife was so monotonous. I longed for the uncertainty and excitement of a human life and reveled in the opportunity to at least walk amongst them.

I gazed down at this human, wondering whether it truly was such a good idea to let her see me as I was. Perhaps it was best to appear to her as a normal human male? I imagined her killing me for seeing me as I was. But I quickly shook that notion off.

I wanted to frighten her a little. I wanted to help her, but also to be cruel. But never to hurt her. Never would I do that.

Creatures like me have wings and appear in human form. However, we are naturally devoid of clothing and it did not occur to me to make an effort to dress myself.

The girl stirred in my arms, as if in a bad dream. I pulled her closer, moving her head to rest on my arm so that she wasn't on rocks which would reopen her wounds. Her eyelids parted slightly and she gazed at me for just a moment before turning her face into my chest, pressing her body against mine in the cold. I watched as her flesh raised from the cold in something these peculiar little humans like to call "goosebumps" or "chillbumps."

I do not know how long she stayed like that. All I know is that after a long while, her body began to move ever so slightly. Her hips tipped lazily into me, touching my genitals, and her mouth moved over my chest a little. Astonished, I gazed down at her. What was she doing? Her hips moved rhythmically against mine, causing parts of me to harden. The experience was not a new one. I was well accustomed to how my own body reacted, but was not prepared for such a human to provoke that reaction in me. I felt her breasts press into my body and I found myself aching to touch her.

I knew that I shouldn't. I knew that I had a duty that I was bound to, but I couldn't help myself. That skin was so soft, so willing. I moved my wings so that they retracted behind me. I moved myself down over her body so that I was between her legs. Pushing up her thin dress, I kept my eyes on her face, hoping she would wake during this.

My nose grazed over her thighs, taking in her scent. I knew how to please women. Though humans believe angels to be celibate or above sex, we are far from that. I'd had sex with countless women, some of them willing. But all of them had exited the encounter perfectly happy. I was nothing if not a generous lover and I knew how to play the strings of a woman's body like a harp. I moved my mouth over the girl's sex. She must have been dreaming of something similar because her wetness was evident. Her hips moved up to meet my mouth as I descended, licking and flicking my tongue over her clit. She gasped in surprise, then moaned. I was gentle enough not to wake her yet. I wanted to give her as delicious of a dream as possible.

I moved my tongue intricately around her clit, focusing on that little ball of pleasure that I knew would make her squirm the most. I felt her moist cunt at my face, I felt her body tighten and relax before tightening again. She tasted delicious.

I inserted a finger, experimenting to see how tight the girl was, and grinned to discover that she was no virgin. I wondered who had made her cum earlier in life.

I was too selfish to deny myself any longer. My cock was hard and it ached for her. It had been decades since I had been in a situation this enticing and I longed for this stranger like a man in the desert longs for an oasis. I moved away from her clit, pushing her legs apart. The darkness of night enveloped us, her skin glinting under the full moon. My wings were positively shaking with lust and, without thinking, I slid my member deep into her. I tried being delicate at first. I didn't want her to wake to pain. But it proved immediately difficult to control myself.

I ripped the dress from her body and quickly pulled her hips down onto my cock. Her eyes flitted open and I watched with satisfaction as she saw me, towering naked above her, my wings extended as they always did in ecstasy. I felt her immediately tighten on my member, her juices making the union slicker.

"Ohhh," she moaned in wonder, half afraid and half aroused. I watched those eyes, so full of conflicting emotions. She did not know whether to be terrified or to be aroused.

**Bella**

I had no idea what he was, but he was glorious.

I had been dreaming of Lilith. Dreaming of her skilled fingers, tongue, and mouth. She always knew what to do. However, those quickly turned to a man's strong hands. Those hands had gripped my hands so hard it almost hurt, ate my sex, and then sank me down onto his hard penis. It was only when I was filled that I awoke to the sight.

He was truly and utterly the most magnificent creature I had ever beheld. His hair was dark and tousled, as if he cared little about combing it. His body was muscled and hardened, and lightly tanned. Dark, almost black wings hung on either side of him, extending almost 10 feet altogether. He seemed to be an angel of death, coming to kill me in my moment of ecstasy.

I could do nothing but stare. His face was achingly wonderful with a strong jaw and a short, trimmed beard. He slowly pulled out of me, the movement producing a kind of ecstasy within me. I had never experienced anything with a man before and it was a completely new experience. I gasped as he thrust hard into me again, our skin slapping together.

He seemed to enjoy my sounds of both pain and ecstasy. His hands were hard on my waste, pulling and pushing, faster and faster. I cried out, my back arching, pleading for him to continue.

"Who are you?" I breathed as he slammed into me again. "Oh please, don't stop. Keep going." I felt like butter, melting, melting.

A smirk spread over his face as he stared down at me, slowing his movements. "Who am I?" he repeated. "Oh, you have no idea." He reached down to slowly rub my clit as his member moved in and out at an _achingly_ slow rate. "I have been sent to you, Bella. I am here, not for this," he said strongly as he quickly thrust into me again. "But to protect you. I am here to guide you. But you have distracted me and I could not help myself. I have known many women, both human and otherwise, but you are the first to entice me so. You are the first to have entranced me so much so that I could not keep from taking you as you slept." He pulled my legs up so that they rested on his shoulders, my toes brushing his dark wings ever so slightly.

"Oh God," I gasped as he went deeper in that position.

"Poor little creature," he murmured, leaning down to look me in the eye, his face merely a few inches away from mine. I was struck dumb by the beauty of his face. "God isn't here." He laughed darkly and began moving his hips again, quicker and quicker. His cock rammed into me over and over and I began to edge closer and closer to a precipice I was unfamiliar with but knew was coming.

I didn't know what to do, or what was truly happening. It was like my first time with Lilith all over again. His fingers dug into my skin and his teeth bit my breasts and I reacted like an animal, screaming with ecstasy as he pushed me over into an orgasm.

**Edward**

She was glorious in her ecstasy. Her body spasmed as she met the little death, as the common folk are so keen to call it. I wanted to consume her, bruise her, devour her. I wanted to make her my toy and dominate her.

And I was determined to do it.

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**Reviews are much appreciated. They feed the writer's soul. Thank you for reading and there is much better to come.**

**Oriana**


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